Turning Back Time: Finding What We've Lost

Last year I said that November is my least favorite month. I hate the shorter days that grow shorter as the fall days pass, and I especially hate how quickly the dark arrives in November. Still, I appreciate "falling back" one hour, which leads to the darker evenings. Although I prefer spring to fall, I like gaining time, not losing it. Even now that I am retired and less busy, I don't like springing forward but love falling back.

I am sure that there are many people who would like to "turn back time," to quote a generally forgettable Cher song, not just to recapture an hour, but to revisit their younger, better days. I am not one of those people. I don't long for my lost youth. Several years before I retired, I tried to comfort a younger colleague who was not happy to be turning fifty by listing some of the advantages of growing older. I pointed out that people over fifty can get a few senior discounts and an AARP membership, that there are more senior discounts at fifty-five, Social Security at sixty-two, and Medicare at sixty-five. I paused for a moment and then said cheerfully, "Later, you get a casket or an urn." My colleague laughed, but I'm not sure I convinced her that she should celebrate growing older.

My younger colleague probably realized what even I usually admit. We lose more than we gain as we grow older. And the losses start early. I lost my 20-20 vision and my ability to digest chili in my late twenties. In my late thirties, I lost some of my flexibility, which meant that I could no longer sit for long periods of time (one of my favorite occupations during my youth) without growing stiff and could no longer perform my one "stupid human," double-jointed trick--joining my hands and taking my arms over my head from front to back without letting go. In my late forties, I lost the ability to digest most of my favorite foods, including everything that was greasy and/or spicy, while in my fifties, I started losing my previously excellent hearing as well as my ability to stay awake during favorite movies and television shows (unfortunately, I was never able to sleep through department meetings like some of my colleagues). Now that I am in my sixties, I am losing my balance so that I have to walk more carefully or carry a cane.

Even more significant than the skills and senses that we lose as we grow older are the lost relatives and friends. Before he died of old age, former television host Art Linkletter joked that one ninety-something woman said that the best thing about being her age was there was no peer pressure. True, but having no peers can be lonely. My stepfather was one of twenty-two siblings (they all had the same father but several different mothers). Now there are only three of his half-siblings left; his mother's last child died several years ago. My mother and her four years older sister had many cousins when they were younger; now they are the only survivors from their generation. And I've lost several of my first cousins. In fact, my ninety-one-year-old aunt (my last surviving aunt of two; my three uncles have all died) has outlived five of her ten children.

My favorite among many movies dealing with time travel is "Peggy Sue Got Married," starring Kathleen Turner. If I remember the plot accurately, Peggy Sue fainted at a high school reunion and awakened to find herself back in high school. I loved the moment when she was in her algebra class, found out there was going to be a quiz, and told her teacher that she knew she would never need algebra in her adult life. I would love to go back to my freshman year in high school to tell my algebra teacher that good news. I also wouldn't mind going back to my sophomore year in high school to tell my counselor who warned me I wouldn't do well in college because of my "average" IQ the good news about my advanced degrees and my career as a college professor. I would also like to tell him that he was a fool.

I wouldn't mind spending a few minutes reliving my past, but unlike conservative whites who want to go back to the days when they believe "America was great," I prefer to keep moving forward to the new multicultural America, even as I continue to lose my friends, relatives, skills, and senses. However, if twenty years from now, I find myself in the condition that my mother is in now, I will probably be looking back to these years, wishing I was sixty-six again and could drive and think.

Once I stop gaining wisdom and start losing my mind, I will be ready to turn back time, looking for what I have lost.